Sunday, April 20, 2008

FINDING HIS VOICE

Talk about rarities! Here's a '29 Max Fleischer animated cartoon that I haven't seen since catching it through a heavy duty layer of snow on WVIZ-TV's OLD MOVIES, THE GOLDEN ERA a longer time ago than I'd care to remember. (Twas on a special short subjects episode of the program which also featured, if I recall correctly, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, a Disney Alice short complete with a thirties soundtrack [undoubtedly a latterday reissue] and a VOICE OF HOLLYWOOD hosted by Don Alvarado with a special appearance by none other than Mickey Daniels and Mary Kornman post-Our Gang and pre-Boyfriends...I can still remember host Stu Levin pointing out that the rolling camera could be heard on the soundtrack if we listened close enough as well as mocking Daniels and Kornman for whatever long-forgotten reason he had!) Anyway, it's sure good to see this neglected rarity again even though I remember a different ending where the characters unravel themselves while singing "Goodnight Ladies" (!), but whatever the outcome can you think of a better example of a propaganda short custom-made to hype the sound-on-film method then battling it out against the sound-on-disc format?